For the former, it simply spins the idea that we need to train Iraqis and eventually turn over the fight to the Iraqis in terms meant to make it seem like a retreat out of Iraq.
For the latter, we get to the Nobel Peace Prize material. Jeff Jacoby writes:
SHOULD THE United States turn to Iran and Syria for help in reducing the violence bloodying Iraq? James Baker's Iraq Study Group, out this week with its well-leaked recommendations, thinks direct talks with Tehran and Damascus would be a fine idea. I think so too -- right after those governments switch sides in the global jihad.
As things stand now, however, negotiating with Iran and Syria over the future of Iraq is about as promising a strategy for preventing more bloodshed as negotiating with Adolf Hitler over the future of Czechoslovakia was in 1938. There were eminent "realists" then too, many of whom were gung-ho for cutting a deal with the Fuehrer. As Neville Chamberlain set off on the diplomatic mission that would culminate in Munich, William Shirer recorded in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," Britain's poet laureate, John Masefield, composed a paean in his honor . When the negotiations were done and Czechoslovakia had been dismembered, the prime minister was hailed as a national hero. The Nobel Committee received not one, not two, but 10 nominations proposing Chamberlain for the 1939 peace prize.
Talking to our enemies isn't all bad as I noted here. The key is recognizing them as enemies and not partners.
But talks under the assumptions made by the Baker commission will be a disaster. Iran and Syria have no interest in helping us and their own interests do not coincide with ours even a little bit. I trust the President will shred that chapter on a nationally televised address to the nation.
Mark my words, you don't get the Nobel Peace Prize for just any ordinary work of crud. You have to stick it to America, too.
Baker. Crud. Sticking in to America. Nobel Peace Prize. Get used to it.
I'm just being realistic, here. That's all in fashion nowadays, isn't it?
UPDATE: Robert Tracinski doesn't think too much of the report:
Few have recognized the empty banality of the ISG report because they have focused on a few seemingly radical recommendations.
I raise my hand skyward on recognizing the banality of the report in the first paragraph of this post.
But more important than lauding my word choice, Tracinski also says:
The whole ISG report is a spectacular punt. It contains a few broad, vague goals for our policy--and a whole range of specific recommendations for actions that are not in the power of the American government to take.
I think the President could take this punt and run it back for a score. Really, as banal as the bulk of this report is, it sets a floor beneath which our policy will not fall. It gives cover for the non-Michael Moore parts of the opposition (and those who simply don't want to be blamed for losing another war even if they support what Michael Moore wants) to support our basic policy of getting the Iraqis to take over the fighting--what we've been doing since the summer of 2004.
But by saying the sainted Baker commission calls for this and calls for that, the opposition party and those who were pro-war but have strayed out of nervousness will be able to support our war policy again. Just spin what we are doing just a little differently, make some necessary changes consistent with the basic policy (and that's what "staying the course" means, people--not that no change is necessary ever), and many will feel it safe to say they've saved our war policy!
I don't care who gets or shares the credit for victory as long as we win. I fault our President for failing to rally the country to support the war every damned day and I've complained about this failure for three years. It is this administration's own fault that we even have a Baker report to cope with. But if Baker provides enough cover to actually carry on the war until we win, I will retract all the unkind things I've said about him over this report.
If the Iraq War becomes known as the Baker-Pelosi War of Iraqi Liberation, I won't care one bit. You can accomplish a lot if you don't care who gets credit for it. Heck, I'll even nominate Baker for the Nobel Peace Prize.
